Marketing Discussions From Students at the Girard School of Business, Merrimack College

There is still a large market of engaged customers to involve in mobile instant messaging.

Until now, the potential of mobile instant messaging has yet to be revealed, as most of us are still not able to use it efficiently to engage potential customers through mobile networks. By exploring all the functions of WeChat, I decided to introduce how it works and how it can help capture customers all over the globe.

WeChat is an app based in China, and it is expanding into new markets in a number of large and growing countries. Especially after the 4.5 version launched, user growth has increased because of new functionality, including Live Chat and Voice reminder. For the former, live group chats can be formed privately anytime and anywhere, as members are selected by you. The latter is a voice and text function which serves as an alarm that can remind app users to finish things on time. Apart from these innovative functions, there are still a variety of functions that new users should learn.

WeChat vs. Weibo

WeChat can be a useful tool for marketers, and it functions differently than Weibo. When it comes to the comparison between Wechat and Weibo, it is obvious that there is little overlap, as – on the former – you can publish content once a day, while – on the latter – there is no limit. Therefore, publishers on WeChat should know exactly what they need to publish in order to attract their potential customers and increase their subscribers.

Attract your customers with suitable strategies

After determining what type of content should be published, the publishing medium should also be considered, as it has a critical effect on customers. Five types of media to take into consideration are: text, audio, visual, text and visual, and video.

QR codes are effective for advertising on WeChat

Small incentives for potential customers, such as discounts or souvenirs, can motivate customers to add WeChat through a QR code. Since QR codes are a convenient way for people to add WeChat, a little push will provide good value for customers and help convince them to add your WeChat.

Conclusion

Since WeChat is still not familiar to most marketers, they should give it a try to see its possibilities. By learning about it and mastering it at an early stage, marketers will be able to get a jump start on their competition and reach customers who are also joining this popular, increasingly global social network.

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11 thoughts on “More Marketing Insights on WeChat”

Manikol OukDecember 2, 2015 / 4:00 am

I like that Wechat have a great marketing connection with many businesses in China because business can have promotion deal and adversitment on there. It also get the word out faster because almost every Chinese use it.

I feel like the Wechat is more like “What’s app” only your friends can see you post. but the Weibo is more public, people can view your site even not your friends, so if i want share somethings, i’m more prefer Weibo.

I really like we chat and what is has to offer. Although I feel this is not a thing that is very influential in the united states it has much room to grow and eventually become something much bigger than it already is. Aany app will have great possibilities that it can present, its up to those that have developed the app to take it where they want too.

Reading this article was the first time I have heard about Wechat. It seems to be very similar to apps that are popular in the United States such as Whatsapp or Telegram, I think as the United States becomes more familiar with the app, it has the potential to become very popular over here. There are millions of apps now which make it hard for them to really set themselves apart from other apps and get global popularity. After reading this article, I think Wechat has the possibility of becoming a successful app globally.

I like the introduction of the LiveChat idea. This makes me really think about myself as a consumer when I see pop-up chats on websites such as Banana Republic versus a Livechat on BestBuy. I think it’s interesting to think about whether or not the chat aspect in the consumer market, although it is not exactly similar to the WeChat app. Overall, I think the trend of these open chats are becoming less popular, as Apple continues to develop their group-chat technology. Personally, I don’t engage in as much in chats with both my social circle and when websites offer livechats with customer service representatives.

I agree with Giulia. There are countless chat applications out there and they are starting to dwindle off. The best use for them is when trying to talk with a friend internationally, and not having to pay for service. Unless there is integration with something bigger, do not know if this will actually take off and be a long term success. May have to partner with someone else.

The Wechat app is very famous it has been few years launched in india, most of the people use it same like the apps we are familiar whatsapp, telegram. The most differentiating thing that this app has is it has lot of features and mostly we can find the features of skype (video calling),whatsapp(messaging),viber(stickers) everything in one wechat app. So rather than using many apps for different purposes we can wechat which has everything in it

Jameson and Giulia have a fair point here. Among the countless different platforms of online it seems very few are able to compete with the monopoly by which Skype has over that specific market. Skype has established itself as the global leader in international communication via a web based format. I believe that any attempt to compete with them in the long term will be futile, unless some original and groundbreaking feature could be crafted in order to set WeChat apart from it’s consumers.

I think WeChat sounds like it going to continue to be successful in the long run. I currently use GroupMe to communicate with the student staff that I supervise. Even though GroupMe is a great app to have group messages in, especially if not everyone has an iPhone, WeChat seems to offer more than GroupMe. I think the live chat function makes WeChat stand out to other similar apps that consumers can use. With this being said, WeChat needs to ensure that they are constantly developing new features to keep up with the competition.

It seems as if these messaging apps change every so often. I lived in Vancouver for a year and the popular app was WhatsApp because it allowed Canadian kids to message American kids for free if they weren’t on wifi. I think WeChat is a great idea but I don’t know how long it will last because it seems that this messaging industry is overtaken from year to year. I believe the only way to truly be successful is to get a deal with apple to be the main go to messaging system that takes over IMessage, however realistically I don’t see that ever happening.

Wechat seems like a good idea for marketers, but it may face some issues expanding since there are so many different messaging apps. I have both GroupMe and Whatsapp, and I rarely use them except for groups and people in other countries. If WeChat could attract marketers and create a platform that would help companies connect with customers, that may help them gain an edge among all the different kinds of apps.